Rain changes plans; no comment from Norberto

Rain prevented A’s position players from working out on the field today; pitchers scheduled to throw did so in the covered cages at Papago Park. The only other bit of real daily baseball news today: Jesse Chavez will start the A’s first Cactus League game on Saturday at Maryvale against the Brewers, Travis Blackley will get the second game of the spring and Andrew Werner the third. The A’s frontline starters and primary relievers will not work in games until later because of their workloads last season and the long spring.

Jordan Norberto said, “No comment, I’m here to play baseball,” when I asked him about the ESPN report linking him to documents found in the Bosch clinic investigation; Bartolo Colon, under suspension for five more games because of a positive steroid test, also is in such documents.

Teammate Josh Donaldson provided strong support for Norberto when I spoke to him, saying, “It’s just documents. That’s not enough evidence to say a guy is taking performance enhancing drugs. We have the strongest drug policy in pro sports and he hasn’t at any time been caught or tested positive. It’s really unfair anyone is throwing his name out there. Anyone’s name could be on a piece of paper, anyone’s name can be tarnished. Jordan’s a great guy and everyone in here knows that. Until I see a positive test, I’m never going to think he did anything wrong.”